HCPC Europe Columbus Award for
Patient-friendly Packaging Design 2016

Each year HCPC Europe organises the Columbus Packaging award for Patient-friendly Packaging Design. Innovative packaging solutions help patients to take their medication as prescribed. Carefully designed packaging can make a significant contribution to patient compliance with respect to: e.g. ease of identification; clarity of instructions; visible evidence of medication taken.

The winner of the Columbus Award 2016 in the category of Commercially Available Products is the Olmetec® pack of Daiichi-Sankyo Europe GmbH. The winner in the concept category was Palladio Group with their PhutureMed Memo solution. All finalists presented their packs at the award ceremony on 19 October 2016 at Kloster Eberbach.

Finalists Columbus Award 2016

As a result of this year’s judging session on 8 September 2016 we can now announce the finalists of the Columbus Award 2016. All members of the board and advisory board took part in judging the participating packs. The entries were judged in two categories: ‘Commercially available products’ and ‘Concepts for new packs’.

Finalists Commercially available productsTwo of the entries that were sent in in the category ‘Commercially available products’ were selected as finalists. These are:

On 19 October 2016 the award ceremony for the Columbus Award 2016 took place. With this award HCPC Europe awards excellent patient-friendly packaging design that improves patient adherence.

Register for the Columbus Award 2017

Registration for the Columbus Award 2017 is now open! For more information, send an e-mail to Ger Standhardt.

Winner of the Columbus Award 2016

in the category Commercially available products: Daiichi-Sankyo

Olmetec®, Olmetec Plus®, and Sevikar/HCT®

The Olmesartan Franchise of products now comes in a new Adherence Package. The 5 new features of the Adherence pack help make a difference in patients’ lives. Features include the top opening design provides patients the convenience and easy access to their medication. The intake timer reduces the risk of missing pills and the last blister reminder help prevents patients from running out of medication. The Digital Product Information via the QR-Code helps provide access to product information that patients can refer to for relevant information in an easy to read, legible format.

Winner of the Columbus Award 2016

in the category Concepts: Palladio Group

PhutureMed™ Memo Solution

The Phuturemed™ Solution is an advanced packaging system which supports a number of features to monitor the quality of medicines shipped to patients and improve medication adherence to prescribed drug therapies. The E Ink module is composed of a 2” segment e-Paper display, a micro-controller embedded RTC timer and temperature sensor, and a thin battery; the module offers the look and feel as similar as printed packaging, but its contents can be customized as required. For example, it can provide (1) time stamp that record the real time of the last open event, and (2) warning message in case the item has exposed a pre-defined temperature range. With both RTC timer and temperature sensor in one integrated design, not only the solution helps to improve the efficiency for clinical trial, it also helps to reduce waste in the supply chain for identifying the compromised product at any given time.